Author: Jason Lustig

Dr. Jason Lustig is a scholar of modern Jewish history and culture, and he is a Harry Starr Fellow in Judaica at Harvard's Center for Jewish Studies. He is the host and executive producer of Jewish History Matters. You can learn more about Jason and his research on his personal website, www.jasonlustig.com, and can follow him on Twitter at @JasonLustig.

Shari Rabin joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about her exciting new book, Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth Century America. We discuss why nineteenth-century American Jewish history is important, the debates over the distinctiveness of America and Jewish history here, the transformation of Jewish religious life in America, and the question of assimilation and what the history of American Jewish life has to tell us about our own time of DIY Judaism and post-denominationalism.

Introducing Jewish History Matters, a podcast dedicated to exploring how the newest research and enduring issues of Jewish studies have something to offer to our understanding of the world at large. It presents the argument that in order to understand history and the human experience broadly speaking, we need to understand the Jews. In this podcast, we’ll be exploring how and why this history matters and what we can learn from it in broad terms.